Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu has given out hints that there could yet be revisions in the recently adopted Digital Security Act. While we are pleased that he has made these reassurances, we must also register our feelings about what has happened in relation to the DSA in recent weeks.
The government was supposed to have taken the opinions of the media community before the law was enacted. That did not happen, which has quite predictably left journalists in a state of agitation on the issue.
The minister's reassurances, let us repeat, have made us happy. And yet we must question statements that are made once a measure has been ratified and adopted by the State. The time and opportunity for revisions to be brought into the DSA was there before the document was sent to the President for his assent.
Now that the assent has been given, one hardly sees any way out of the predicament journalists have been placed in with the law coming into force. Minister Inu has tried calming the frayed nerves of media people by telling them that they can rest assured they will not suffer because of the Digital Security Act. Earlier, the Prime Minister expressed her view that if journalists do not write of matters that are wrong or false, they have nothing to fear.
All such reassurances are fine, up to a point. The fact is that such laws as Section 57 and the DSA put the brakes on journalistic freedom in the sense that journalists need to be extra careful about which law or which sections of such regulations they might be violating while preparing their news reports and editorial comments. In simple terms, and as a rule, when laws of this import are in place, journalists are involuntarily led into a situation where self-censorship becomes a necessity.
To be sure, exercising self-censorship where handling sensitive matters of national security and the core principles of the constitution are concerned is but natural. Any journalist ignoring these realities will be guilty of committing a gross crime and a lack of professionalism.
But when a law makes him nervous to a point where he is in mortal dread of violating rules of which he might not be fully aware, it is not a good situation.But, of course, Minister Inu has rekindled our hope by his reassurance. If indeed revisions can be and are brought into the DSA, nothing could be better. We will wait, fingers crossed.
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